Leoluca Orlando: ‘I was elected mayor of Palermo with a victory of 74%. That means people think I’m right.’
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Every time a ship with rescued migrants enters the harbour of Palermo, the mayor goes to greet them. “Welcome,” he says to them. “The worst is over. You are citizens of Palermo now.”

Leoluca Orlando first became famous not as a defender of migrant rights, but for fighting the mafia in the 1980s and 90s. Born into a privileged family, he had been pursuing an academic career at Palermo University when in 1980 something happened that changed his life forever. His friend Piersanti Mattarella, the regional president of Sicily, was killed by the mafia.

“Behind his assassination were politicians of his own party,” says Orlando. “I decided to become active in politics to continue his work – cleansing the Sicilian political system of the mafia.”

Today the mafia still exists, but they no longer have political power in Palermo. The bosses were toppled and 4,000 mafiosi have been arrested in Sicily since the 1990s as the flamboyant mayor risked his life to turn things around in a city once compared with 1980s Beirut. Orlando was on the mafia’s death list, along with judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were both killed in bomb attacks in 1992.

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Two years ago, when Mattarella’s brother Sergio was elected president of Italy, Orlando knew his friend’s mission had been accomplished “and it is a miracle that I am still alive”, he adds.

Now, aged 69, he’s on another equally herculean mission: to persuade the EU to allow freedom of movement for migrants by offering Palermo as a blueprint for other cities trying to integrate migrant populations.

“We need to abolish the residence permit,” he says about the official document a migrant needs to legally live in a country of which they are not a citizen. Because this permit is often not granted, many migrants are forced into an illegal life, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and exclusion.

“People have the right to move in search for a better life,” says Orlando, adding that it is hypocritical to distinguish between political and economic migrants. “When your life is at stake because your country is at war, you are welcome. But when you’re dying because you have nothing to eat, you are left out in the cold. That makes no sense at all. Economic migrants are the most vulnerable because they don’t have the right to a residence permit.”

Everywhere he goes, Orlando passionately advocates these ideas. “Europe is guilty of slavery and genocide when it comes to migration,” he says, slamming his hand on his desk.

“People from Syria are supposed to have the right to live in Europe, but they are not given that right. They can’t travel by plane. We make them pay thousands of dollars to smugglers and risk their lives,” he adds, citing the 5,000 migrants who drowned last year in the Mediterranean.

A migrant sits on a concrete block on the Palermo waterfront. Around 400,000 migrants have arrived in Sicily in the past two years. Photograph: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

‘Intolerance is in the minds of politicians, not the people’

Europe needs migrants, in his opinion. “Nobody wants to work in agriculture any more, for example, whole areas are deserted, villages lie empty. Migrants can revitalise those areas. Europe, with a population of 600 million, could absorb migrants easily.”

This enthusiasm about migrants and their freedom of movement would be radical for any politician, but it’s particularly surprising coming from someone who leads one of Italy’s poorest cities where almost a quarter of its inhabitants is unemployed. Some 400,000 migrants have arrived in Sicily (population 5 million) in the past two years – a fairly significant number to absorb.

But when asked if the poor of Palermo are happy with this influx of people, Orlando replies: “I was elected mayor with a victory of 74%. That means people think I’m right. There is no intolerance in the stomach of the people, it’s only in the minds of politicians.”

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Palermo has a long tradition of migration. “Many Sicilians have been migrants themselves. And we have a history of absorbing outsiders, having been dominated throughout the ages by Arabs, Byzantines, Normans and Romans.”

Orlando points to a church on the Piazza Bellini. “Look – baroque façade, Norman bell tower. Designed as a mosque, now a church. In Palermo the dog and the cat and the mouse go hand in hand,” he says smiling broadly.

‘He sees us as Palermitan citizens, not migrants’

It’s Saturday morning and Orlando and his two bodyguards are heading to the church of San Giorgio dei Genovesi where he will open an exhibition about the refugee crisis. In the audience is Delfina Nunes from Cape Verde, who has been living in Palermo for 37 years. She is the new president of the Council of Cultures, an advisory body of 21 migrants that Orlando set up to give migrants a say in politics.

“We meet regularly with him,” Nunes says. “We advise him on all kinds of topics, not only on migration. The great thing is that he listens to us and sees us as Palermitan citizens, not as migrants.”

All migrants have the right to go to school, access to medical care and, crucially, the right to work after they have lived in Palermo for two months. This is something that remains elusive for asylum seekers and economic migrants in many places. While the mayor may have no power over who is granted permanent residence in Italy, every migrant is invited to an honorary citizenship ceremony to make them feel part of the city.

Many would expect Orlando’s pro-migrant stance to be an easy target for opposition politicians. After all, how many politicians today would feel confident to run on a pro-migrant platform when they are up for re-election?

Yet apart from the populist Noi con Salvini party, Orlando’s rivals in June’s mayoral election do not criticise him on migration. When asked for a comment, his greatest rival, Fabrizio Ferrandelli, simply stresses the fact that he has always “been engaged in helping the integration and inclusion of newcomers in Palermo”.

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Orlando feels he has come full circle. He says European migration policies are promoting organised crime by creating illegal migrants in the first place.

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“In my fight against the residence permit, I find myself once more face to face with the mafia, because the mafia need the residence permit. They need illegality and prohibitions. They thrive on it.”

Orlando says his views on migration were formed by personal encounters with migrants arriving in Palermo’s harbour. “I met a girl of 14 from Congo. Her mother drowned on the journey here. This made me realise: Europe is killing people.”

He is not alone in his call for a different approach. The pope sent him a letter to express his admiration and gratitude. Other European mayors have also come together to commit to “become places of refuge”, and most recently the mayor of Naples, Luigo de Magistris, urged 70 European mayors to become “a megaphone” for refugees.

Orlando is realistic about the wider political climate towards migrants. He knows it will take time to abolish the residence permit, but says “we needed time to abolish slavery, we needed time to abolish the death penalty. But in a globalised world, where there is free movement of goods, money and information, free movement of people is ultimately inevitable.”